While there are plenty of Final Fantasy XIV players who were ready to charge into Shadowbringers the very second early access started, there are no doubt many more struggling like a little brother in waist-deep snow to catch up. Square Enix sees those players. Square Enix has pity. Square Enix also has a marketing department that loves to make money.
So Square Enix will make those players a deal. Starting today, job jumps to level 70 and story skips to the very start of Shadowbringers are being offered through the website store. To bring a single job (class) up to level 70 with appropriate gear will cost you $25, the same price for cutting right through to the entirety of Stormblood.
FFXIV has sold these sorts of skips before, but now that Shadowbringers is out, it was apparently time to spruce up these store offerings. Special MOP achievement to the first reader who buys all of the job skips for $375 (but seriously, don’t do that)!
Yes! I couldn’t get myself through ARR but I heard from many people that Heavensward & Stormblood’s plot are much better. I’ll definitely try this out.
If you can’t stand a story-centered MMO, this isn’t the game for you.
Honestly, the sort of person who’d use a skip isn’t going to really enjoy this game.
And more of those people getting into the game, mobbing the forums, and complaining about content not being what they like, and that the game “doesn’t respect my time” because you can’t just powerlevel and jump straight into the endgame treadmill, and must – *GASP* – UNLOCK THINGS VIA THE STORY – skews the devs toward people this game isn’t aimed at anyway.
what? I’ve played the entire story and want to skip it for an alt. Hope that’s ok with you. Next time I’ll check with you first.
LOL.
Alts IDGAF about, I’m talking about people I know in-game, who literally bitch and whine when any story takes more than 20 seconds to explain, skip every cutscene on their first go through, never watch any, and pay to skip all the old content, to boot – and then complain that the game is boring or doesn’t respect their time.
Alts are one of the very few reasons I am even OK with SE selling this sort of thing. But XIV’s system is set up so you don’t need alts unless you’re multi-data-center to play with friends now.
In other words: having not already experienced the content once [i.e. not an Alt], it’s fucking stupid to pay to skip content you already bought and paid for.
Gotcha. My apologies.
I dunno man. Personally I’ve skipped story parts before to get to the more interesting parts/expansions (BDO being the latest, to get to Kamasylvia main quest) and that revived my love for the game’s story. It’s almost like skipping a movie to get to the better sequel.
Stories & world-building are my main drive to play games. But ARR is (to me) a drab. If HW & SB turn out to have better stories that can give me some hours of happiness I’m more than willing to pay to experience them right away.
Wrong. I loved the stories in SWTOR. I love the stories in SWL (despite the rest of the game being shit). I loved the stories in ESO.
FFXIV’s story is a) HORRIBLY PACED (I’m an author–I have a bit of authority on how to pace stories, and this is NOT how you do it).
Even some of the biggest fans of this game admit the vanilla content of ARR is shit and boring and most people can’t slog through it because of how badly paced it is, and how much filler there is, and how slow the combat is in early levels.
It’s a generic, boring-ass anime story right on par with Guildwars 2.
Gating things such as housing, the auction house, everything everything behind a forced story isn’t great MMO design.
It’s because the leveling process in this game is one of the most awful I’ve ever experienced. It’s the epitome of everything wrong with leveling in MMOs.
The leveling process in this game is one of the few that actually held my attention until end game. Most of the other MMOs I’ve played just couldn’t keep me around through the abyss that usually exists between the end of interesting content and end game. If an MMO can’t hold my attention all the way until I get to end game, it is not going to hold my attention once I get there, so buying skips is money wasted. I honestly wish more MMOs were interesting all the way until end game, like FFXIV:ARR.
I hope that’s sarcasm. Even some of the game’s staunchest fans agree ARR is utter shit for leveling–tedious, full of filler, and horribly paced. If you enjoyed it…well :/ weird. Just weird. Whatever, I guess, but I find it one of the worst MMOs out there.
Oh no, an online game offering a level boost to get to current content? Gosh, the horror. How will I sleep at night, knowing that other people might be out there… Spending their money on things I don’t approve of? Golly, I better get my panties all up in a twist.
As fun as I hear FF14 is at end game, I wont play it. I got to 46 and just couldnt go any further. The game simply didnt respect my time, in fact it readily just crapped all over it.
So now they offer a paid way to jump right to the fun stuff? That just seems like a slap in the face.
Not a fan of catch up mechanics. Less of a fan of paid ones.
Meanwhile the DDOS attacks are coming back again, because apparently FFXIV can’t launch a new expansion or major patch without that happening nowadays.
Don’t you think it’s a little bit convenient to blame DDOS attacks every time they have connection problems after a new expansion or major patch?
I read some of the queues were like … 90k?
and it’s a fairly common thing, all truth be told in FFXIV to have some sort of DDoS attack
Nah I fully believe there’s folks trying to regularly DDoS XIV. Often happens whenever Squeenix announces that they banned a wave of bots/gil sellers.
It was especially bad in the first month or two of Stormblood.
Finally! I’ve been wondering when they’d let us pay money to skip actually having to play the game.
I bought a skip and a boost for an alt because I didn’t feel like playing the story through twice. Said alt is now a Hrothgar and I couldn’t bear to change my main into something else.